Natasha Botbijl excels at creating high-performance training programs and coaching people to see their challenges and opportunities from a new viewpoint. Deeply engaged and educated, Natasha builds rapport quickly and creates a safe environment to explore her client’s inner desires, motivational factors, and awaken their event potential. An expert in psychodynamic, events, and retreats Natasha is able to help her clients create an environment that makes their big ideas possible, enjoyable, and engaging.

Working as the CEO of Get Event Management, Natasha has helped hundreds of men and women achieve better results and accomplish their visions. She has over six years’ experience delivering professional development programs for leaders, small businesses, and high achievers. She has presented as a keynote speaker on stages in the USA and Canada on empowerment and motivation, as well as training in sales and marketing. Natasha is a bestselling author and has been quoted in books and journals as a thought leader for empowerment. Natasha has worked with a variety of individuals and organizations from the solopreneur with big ideas to the million dollar organizations and their teams.

Transcript

– So, Natasha, what was the highlight of your event career?

– Oh, well I’d have to say there’s actually two events that were a highlight for me, and I’m in the middle of building what’s going to be probably my next highlight event, but 2018 was huge. One was my Abundance Ignited retreat, which was amazing, and I can’t wait to go back Then the other one was for a lady called Chantel Adams for Shine Live, it’s an event I had attended personally, a couple times, and I had the honour and privilege to be a part of the planing team for that one last year, so those will be, you know, the two events that were quite fun to put together, and just so many, like so many women and men involved in these events, and it’s just so phenomenal to see everything that happens, and one was seven days, one was three days, and the power and the impact that goes on, and the amount of structure behind the scenes. It’s just, it’s so much fun. It was incredible.

– What excites you the most about managing events? Like where do you get the thrill?

-Okay, it’s gonna sound really boring to like, a lot of people listening, but the strategy behind the ROI, so how can we produce profitable, like profitability in an event and still have a whole bunch of fun, right so,

– How is that boring, how is that, I’m like, you’re talking my language! I saw cash!

– I like that part, I’ll be honest, I love it. I love working in like, the details, the budgets the like Excel systems, and just figuring out what, like what, like experiential marketing plays a huge role in what I do, so how that ties in and how can we track it. I love it, that’s yeah,

– I know many speakers are rubbish at this, because what they want to do is speak and show up. But they don’t think about all the logistics and things that actually happen when you run an event, and in particular when you run a retreat which is a complete different experience as well, it’s much more complex experience. So you mention Abundance Ignited 2018, and now there is going to be very soon, like in November, Abundance Ignited 2019. Are you excited about that?

– I’m so excited about that. Oh my goodness. Yeah, same location as last year, which I’m so excited we were able to get. So yeah, it’s gonna be something, something like you’ll never forget it once you go.

– I’m already looking, I’m already there, I mean, with my mind, I’m already there. So guys we’ll talk about Abundance Ignite, and how you can be a part of that retreat in a moment. But let’s talk about what makes a great retreat, and what makes a rubbish retreat. So let’s start from the rubbish retreat, the horror stories that are happening in the retreat space. What have been your experiences there?

– Sure, so I can give you some stories, I mean I can give you, I’ll give you a couple, like, hands-on ones I’ve been involved with. So, like just situations right? So they’re all fixable, but you just have to know how to fix things So, I’ve been told I’m really good at putting out fires when needed. So, you know, what makes, what makes a rubbish retreat? One, poor planning. So, you know, you have attendees. especially if you’re planning it outside of your regular area. They don’t know where they’re going! Some of them may never have even been on a plane before! And, they need to have like, how they’re getting to your location. How are, like, what are their accommodations like? They need to know these things, it’s a huge experiential factor for them. If they come, and they’re expecting a private room, and you have a shared accommodation, that’s going to be a completely different mindset for them when they arrive. So you have to prepare them for that. I’ve heard some horrible horrible stories of, you know, people being promised, you know, the moon and the stars and then they show up and they’re in like, twin beds, you know, bunk bed style. So, it’s, you gotta know what you’re promising and what you’re putting out there, for that reason. Another one is not checking your venue properly, especially if it’s not a local venue to you. It really makes a rubbish retreat when you show up and you’re the planner or the host doing it, and you’ve booked this venue and the venue looks great online, and then you show up and it’s nothing like it was online. All of a sudden, you are scrambling to make things right, you’re like calling the venue host, the venue management, whatever. And you know, they’re telling you, it’s all good, it’s all good, and you’re on your end and you’re like, No, it is not all good! Completely different results! You are not doing your due diligence! It makes a rubbish retreat! Couple of my own personal stories. I was involved with an amazing retreat, turned out absolutely gorgeous in the end, everybody loved it. That’s my job, is to make sure that none of the attendees realise or recognise what actually is going on.

-Yeah.

– So, but there’s this one retreat I went to, there was a, it was beautiful on picture but the, couple of the things were broken down when we got there. So, you know, broken doors on like the door gazebos, seaweed all along the beach and crabs galore! One of my main rules was to go and turn the lights on, because the lights weren’t on a timer, you had to actually go turn them on at night, and when you walk out there’s like millions of little crabs everywhere.

– No way!

– And a couple of the ladies were terrified of crabs. And so my job was to chase these crabs, so that they could pave to the, like the, whoever owned this venue didn’t pave to all of the little cottages, so some of them you’re walking in the grass to get to your cottage and there’s like thousands of crabs and the lighting’s very dim and not well done. So, part of my job was to chase these damn crabs everywhere.

– To clear the path for the other attendees to go to their, oh my god.

– Yeah, there was one crab like the size of my head like, I had to chase it, like it’s, I mean, I’m sitting there, I’m like, well walking, but I’m like chasing these crabs along like the little grassy beach area so that the attendees can make it. I’m making fun of it, and it’s like, it’s all fun, everybody loved it. But, it’s, you know, and if you don’t have like, a preparation, something that can make light of those things, right? You could end up with angry attendees

– Absolutely.

– And that is a garbage retreat at that point, it’s like, you know, you gotta know, you gotta prepare. And that’s just what happens when venues lie about what they have set up, so.

– Wow, you know there were a few images that I had in my mind. One is, have you watched Harry Potter?

– Harry Potter, yes.

– There is a scene where there is the big spider with all the other spiders, so I’m just imagining you in that scene right now

– That’s exactly it right there! I’m so glad they were not spiders, ’cause that is actually one of my fears.

– Okay, right, okay so, but with crabs so they were crabs instead of spiders.

– Lots and lots.

– So when you did the first Abundance Ignited in Mexico, in Cancun, did you go there to check the venue? Because, yeah absolutely,

– A hundred percent I did!

– Why am I even asking this question, it’s like,

– So, the beautiful thing is when you do that, it’s a business write-off. So, because you’re going down to look at a venue, you’re speaking with the management, you’re spending time on your business, a lot of accountants will agree that you can actually write that off if you’re going down for that reason. So we actually, we made it a business write-off and we brought my in-laws down as well. So my husband had to,

– Because it was important to speak business to your in-laws.

– I know, yes, so it was, we kind of like dual-purposed it, but yes we did go down and visit it beforehand.

– Okay so, now let’s look at, so we explored what makes a rubbish retreat. So, poor planning, not knowing about the venue, not having someone on site as well that can deal with those kind of situations. And I seen that, for example we run our first retreat in Thailand in January and it’s a very different game than running events. You know, I’ve been running events for the past six, seven years, it’s like a piece of cake. As soon as there is this international factor and everyone leaving together, there are so many more dynamics and layers that’s made it way more complex to manage, to realise it, and always, of course, to keep it at high standard. So, but one thing, which I know, is all the attendees and the speakers that came to Abundance Ignited last year, they said how amazingly well organised this was and how there were like these beautiful small touches or these incredible experiences. So, can you tell us a bit, some of the things that you organised in the past retreat, so that people can have ideas if they have to organise their own retreat, or maybe they want to come this year. What makes it so special?

– For sure, okay, so there’s many little things, it’s all moving parts like you said, so many little details. So, a couple of the things, what, before I go, before I, before we went down, I arranged where everybody was sleeping, all the way to the point of telling them, like, ’cause we were in shared accommodations, but they’re like 1,250 square feet accommodations, they were huge. But, you know, all the way to the point where, what beds they’re sleeping in. And I took into, in my form, some of the questions I ask is, Do you snore? How’s your sleeping? You know, do you get up at night? Those kind of things. So, I’m putting people in the rooms together that are good at kinda like, they’re gonna be okay. Like if you put somebody who has like a light sleeper with a snorer, you’re gonna have disaster the entire retreat between those two, you know, men or women and between your speakers and yourself because all of a sudden the dynamics will shift, people will be tired, crabby. So, you wanna make sure you are aware of personalities and what they’re like and what they need. So that’s one thing that I definitely keep in mind at all my, all my retreats is, why is it that that you need to keep in, keep in mind, with their personalities and dynamics. Like, one woman might be a very like, it was all women last year. One woman might be like, a very outgoing, powerful personality, and then you might have some very shy, introverted personality, so you have to know how you’re mingling those people. I also gave them, one of the things, we never had to use it, but each of the rooms had what’s called a connection envelope, which had games that they could do together, ideas of how to intermingle after the like, the training, and how to really get to know your like, your roommates, so to say.

– Ah, that’s such a great idea, love it.

– So yeah, and it was like easy things, nothing that’s like, overly complicated, so if somebody’s embarrassed that they don’t know how to play Go Fish or something. So, super simple, keep it simple! The other things that I, you know, keep in mind, is, you know, we’re in a hot climate, we want air conditioning, that’s important. One of the things that went wrong at the retreat that I don’t know if anybody even noticed was there was a day where we had no air conditioning. So, I always arrived 30 minutes early for the events room, so I was able to make sure the event room was set up, the cleaning had happened, everything’s comfortable. And I arrived and it was like a hot box, huge hot box!

– Wow.

– So I had to go and deal with the air conditioning. But the thing is, if you arrive early, before your attendees get there, you have time to set things up. Now if you don’t have like a conference room or a shared space, you just want to make sure that you are aware of where you are going to be meeting and everybody’s aware of where that is and then you can just arrive early. Always arrive early. That’s the key point.

– Yep.

– And watch the room, watch the energy in the room. One of the evenings, I had to go grab chocolate, because there was a lot of really heavy emotional stuff getting brought up, which I didn’t expect, because we mainly do business. A lot of heavy, personal stuff was brought up around family and what not, and so I was noticing a lot of like, heaviness and you know just knowing what to do in those situations. Well, one was, you know, we’re women, we like chocolate, so I went and got a bunch of chocolate and brought it to the room. So there’s, you know, just managing those things. Being available on text message, or WhatsApp, if you have WiFi in your resort. Like those kind of things, for people to not always come and find you, but to message you with issues. So, there’s always something that goes wrong, it’s just common and it’s just knowing what to do when that happens.

– Yep, yep, yep. And in terms of the experiences, like, what kind of experiences? First of all, this is another question on the retreat, before we talk about experiences, what’s the balance in a retreat between content and experiences?

– ‘Cause, it’s a very fine balance there.

– Yes, oh my goodness, I have heard stories of people that have gone to retreats and it’s all go, go, go, business, like, training, training, training, training, and there’s no down time, there’s no time for connection and it makes it so hard. So, what you want to be aware of, is you wanna have a good balance of, you know, going out on excursion, connection building, free time, time for them to really integrate the training, and then you have your training days, right? Where you have the speakers or yourself, doing the training and the education. I would say it’s almost like a 70/30 split, right? So, you really want to have, even if you can do it 60/40, so you really want to have at least 30% of the retreat, to be free time, connecting time, excursions, something fun that has nothing to do with the training. And then the rest of it can be training. So, 30, 40%, ideally, would be the excursions. So, for instance, going at the one we retreated in Cayman, we went and swam with stingrays, and we went snorkelling and things like that for a day. And it was a personal development retreat, and that was still something we did. For the Abundance Ignited, we go on a private catamaran, so a day out in that, absolutely no business gets done. It’s a lot of fun. And it’s just, you know, it’s planning those in, and you always wanna have them with a little bit of, push your attendees a little bit out of their comfort zone, give them a reason, not too much, don’t scare them. But people will look for a reason to try something new, or to be a little adventurous, because no matter what they say, most people that travel, or like hop on a plane, want to try something new, they want a different experience, and to give them that through an excursion, or some sort of activity, is a way to really help them remember your retreat as being something life-changing. So, even without the training. And then the training is just all the more powerful.

– Yeah, I totally agree with you. One of the things I’ve realised also, running our retreat in Thailand was, don’t give the morning free and give a business session in the afternoon. I was like, because people were like, oh there is sun in the morning, let’s have a morning session free, so we swapped, for a couple days, things around. Fact is that if someone has a great time, relaxing time, the last thing they want is to start a session at three, four o’clock in the afternoon. So that was very rookie mistake which we’re never going to make again anytime soon, the balance of free time, when to give it, no. Business session in the morning. You wake up, you get there, and then you have fun.

– Always start in the morning, because once they’re relaxing now you’re the bad guy.

– Exactly!

– Don’t be the bad guy!

– You are getting resentful! It’s like, no!

– Yeah, even good fun, it’s like, now you’re free to go. Go have fun at the end.

– Go, enjoy! Okay, so, this time, Abundance Ignited, when is it going to be, and location, let’s explore that.

– So, Abundance Ignited for 2019 will be in November. So, perfect time to get away, all of that coolness that we’re in. So it’ll be in November, and it will be in Mexico, so we’re going back to Mexico. It’s actually officially in Quintana Roo, for those that are more educated in the Mexico zones, but we fly into Cancun. So I like to say it’s Mexico, Cancun, Playa del Carmen area. But officially we are in Quintana Roo. We are at five star luxury resort with butler service. We get special bands that none of the other resort goers can go to. It’s, unless they have black bags, it’s a VIP section, so it’s actually on the Herencia side, which is the up level area where we get a private rooftop terrace with Jacuzzis, we get a private beach. So, you know, with, again, the guys that serve you on the beach, and we get like the butlers, so you just talk to them, whatever you need. I had, last year, I don’t know how this happened. I get distracted sometimes, a little easily, on my own personal needs, and I left my shoes somewhere on the resort, and I had to send my butler out to go and find my shoes. So yeah, so they’ll do anything you need, including search for shoes.

– And what, I mean the location is going to be, it’s fantastic there, and what’s gonna make it, this year, even better than last year? What are you preparing? ‘Cause I know how you are. So I know you’ve already, last year was like the best retreat ever, this year is the best of the best retreat ever. So, what have you prepared for this year?

– So, this year we have miniature, I’m gonna say, honestly, the speakers this year are, a couple of them have been to the last year’s one, so they know how it works. So they’re like even more powerful this year when we’re down there. But the speakers that I put together, and they flow out of the retreat, which you can actually see on the website, under the agenda, will be like phenomenal. So we’re gonna spend, you know, time actually learning about our life, and our business, and abundance. And we’re gonna have, you know, the day, my favourite part. Okay, it’s not like, this is my favourite one, is the catamaran trip where we all go on a private catamaran, but we have full, like it’s ours. Nobody else is on this catamaran, so we have full access on where the boat goes. We have full access on where it docks. We have drinks. We have our own music. It’s the most amazing day ever. And then we also have a free day on the resort, for those that want to tour around Playa, or go into Cancun and do shopping. So lots of just like fun activities, and the speaker lineup for the flow of things is gonna just be so impactful, and so powerful. That’s one thing I didn’t have fully down last year, and we still had so much impact for these attendees. This year that flow is down. It’s like nailed down, and it’s beautiful. So I’m just imagining the expansion that’s gonna happen.

– That’s awesome, and who is this retreat for? So, who is Abundance Ignited for?

– So, this year we’re actually inviting men to come to the retreat. So, I know, it’s like one of those rare retreats that are like open to men and women. So, it’s for men and women who are running a business, ideally, and they want to get to that next level. They want to have that congruency in their life and their business, they want that model to fit with their family, and they just wanna attract like more of what they desire into their life, into their business, and they just need that extra little support and some guidance in how to do it, and how to do it in such a way that’s it’s just like instantaneously, you see the abundance start to flow when you get back. It’s also for those that are kind of on the fence on the, they feel called into starting into a business, and, you know, leaving that nine to five, but they’re a little scared. We always get a couple people in that are like that. They’re amazing, because when we surround them with such beautiful entrepreneurs that are already building their business, connecting. We have the speakers, the mentors, I mean, the thing about the retreat that’s a little unique is, you’re not just, like, so what do you want out of the speakers, right? So, you’re not just coming to speak one day, you’re coming for the whole seven days, to like help mentor these attendees, to help bring them up into that abundance, and that lifestyle that they want.

– Absolutely, every single attendee will have one to one time with me there. So, to build on top of the content I will deliver on the sales side, and I think that’s a really important part. So then someone is there, and then it feels like, oh my god, I’m not just, you know, like when you go to a conference, you don’t have time to speak with every single attendee. But in a retreat you can, because it’s seven days.

– Oh yeah, yeah, and I make sure all my speakers are very happy to like spend that one on one time. It’s not like I’m managing my speaking then I’m gonna go chill on the beach for six days. It’s like, I am here to be with you, to help you to get things moving, and I love that. I love hiring the speakers for that reason. It’s actually one of the qualifications to be a speaker in my retreat. So, yeah, a hundred percent, I think that’s, like it’s so powerful.

– So, where can people get a ticket? And do you have any early bird, what offers are available at the moment, so that guys you can see what, how you can be part of this, because the time to get your ticket is right now.

– It really is right now, like I’m not, it’s for real right now. We are early bird right now. I am not doing so many promotions or anything like that, I’m kind of keeping it on the hush vibe at the moment, because the ticket price is so low. So we are, $2,200 is the ticket price for this. And you don’t have to spend a dime when you land. The shuttle is taken care of, you get picked up. Shuttle is getting taken care of, you get shuttled right over to the resort. Everything at the resort is taken care of. Everything at the excursions is taken care of. You don’t have to worry about food, alcohol, you know, fun, excursions, travel, anything like that, unless you’re buying souvenirs for your family. $2,200 covers anything, mind that you have to fly there, so you can get your own tickets to go. And then that goes up on March 21st, it’ll jump another $400, and then it’ll keep going up, ’cause the full price of this ticket is actually 4,800. So, we will keep raising the price, and right now it’s like,

– It’s less than 50%, yeah.

– Below cost, and you can’t, the fun fact I just learned is you can’t actually go to this resort without having a member book you in. So that’s one of the, like you can go but you’re not gonna get Herencia, you’re not gonna get the butler, you’re not gonna get any of that.

– Sweet.

– So if you want to come and experience that at this resort you have to go through a member, and I just happen to be one.

– So, I really, if you’re listening to this right now, there’s going to be a link here in the comments below. Click on the link. Get your ticket. You have any question, ask me, ask Natasha, we’re going to be here to answers all the questions that you have, ’cause this is really the experience of a lifetime, and we want you to join us, we want you to enjoy this incredible time that we’re going to have together, where we can put business and leisure together. And you know that with such a great organiser you’re going to have the time of your life, so get your ticket right now. Natasha, it’s been a pleasure having you here, I know you need to leave right now, so thanks again, and I’ll talk to you soon.